Some help on doing the spice assignment...
  
  The easiest way (recommended):
    -Go to the Kelley lab and log into one the Linux machines there.
    -Using the text editor from the menu pulldowns, create your spice file.
    -Assuming that you named your spice file "bob.sp"...  run Hspice by typing:   
        hspice  bob.sp  >!  output_bob
    -Note that I used " >! "  not ">|".  I was making an assumption that you 
     were using a different command interpreter (Bash) instead of the one COE 
     gives you which is C shell.  You can find out your command interpreter by 
     typing "echo $SHELL" (case sensitive)
     
  For more learning:
    -Log into a COE Linux machine with ssh.
    -Using a programming editor such as "vi" or "emacs" edit your spice file.
     You will find many tutorials on the web that can help you learn them.  I
     recommend "vi".  Either is fine.
    -Run spice as above.
    
  For the hard core:
    -Go find the latest source code for ngspice on SourceForge.
    -Compile source code on your machine
    -Do the assignment.

  To play with a gui-spice
    -Download LTspice
    (LTspice works on Linux or Mac OS X under "wine" (a windows api shell)
   
  -Note for Mac or Linux users:  
    ssh is already available to you in your shell (terminal in Mac)
    Also,... you have X11 support available (free, as in beer) so that other  
    gui-based COE tools that are able for you to run on your laptop.

    MacSpice 3f5
    http://www.macspice.com/
    A port of Spice3f5 to Mac OSX.  No schematic entry.  Essentially ngspice with a 
    nice front end.  Free, no license.

    Winspice
    http://www.winspice.com/
    WinSpice is a port of Spice3F4 to Win32 systems.  No schematic entry.
    Win95-XP.  No Vista.  Once installed, program runs for 30 days with all 
    features enabled. After this time some features will be disabled.
    Full license is $90.00